The considerations that were outlined in the preceding chapters have
implications for the health information professional in the health care
setting. Specifically, they entail an array of duties that arise out of the
relationships in which the health information professional stands towards
the various stakeholders. Implicated here are duties towards the patients
whose records the information professional handles, towards the health
care professionals who participate in the treatment of the patients and
who rely on the records that are under the care of the health information
professional, towards the institutions in which the health information professional works, towards the society in which the professional is embedded, and towards other health care professionals. The nature and origin
of these duties will be the subject of the discussion that follows.

However, as is already familiar from previous discussions of the principle of impossibility, one of the logical presuppositions of having a duty
is that it be possible for whoever has that duty to engage in the relevant
actions under the circumstances that obtain. Consequently, the very existence of the above-mentioned duties also entails the existence of certain
corresponding rights: at the most general level, the right to the means
necessary for meeting these various obligation. It follows further that if
the means necessary for meeting these obligations do not exist, are inaccessible or are otherwise unavailable for legitimate reasons,
1 then the
duties in question ceases to be effective. The implications of these considerations will be central to the discussion of the ethical relationship
between the health information professional and the various interested
parties and stakeholders.

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